Friday, October 26, 2012

Poetry Text Sets (Ages 11-14)

For our third installment on text sets, we turn our attention to poetry books for middle school (ages 11-14). Once again, we're looking at groups of three or more poetry books by the same poet that focus on a single topic or theme and are formatted to be very similar in design and appearance. This helps in guiding discussion, comparison, and analysis and can help pinpoint the use of poetic voice, stylistic choices, etc. Poets in this group include: Margarita Engle, Marilyn Singer, Paul Fleischman, Charles R. Smith, Jr., Sara Holbrook, Valerie Worth, James Stevenson, and Carmen T. Bernier-Grand. Topics include:
*Historical novels in verse set in Cuba
*Earth, water, and fire
*Poetry for reading aloud with multiple voices
*Basketball
*About middle school angst
*Free verse poem collections
*Poetic memoirs
*Biographical poetry

Just a reminder that this list is drawn from my new resource book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists.For more information, go here.FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL (ages 11-14)Historical novels in verse set in Cuba
Engle, Margarita. 2006. The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2008. The Surrender Tree. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2009. Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. New York: Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2010. The Firefly Letters; A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba. New York: Henry Holt.
Engle, Margarita. 2011. Hurricane Dancers; The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck. New York: Henry Holt.

Earth, water, and fire
Singer, Marilyn. 2002. Footprints on the Roof: Poems about the Earth. New York: Knopf.
Singer, Marilyn. 2003. How to Cross a Pond: Poems about Water. New York: Knopf.
Singer, Marilyn. 2005. Central Heating: Poems about Fire and Warmth. New York: Knopf.

If you know of other sets that are ideal for middle school, please let me know.

One other note-- I probably get more requests for poetry help from middle school teachers and librarians than from any other group. GOOD NEWS: Janet (Wong) and I are already working on a middle school version of our new book, The Poetry Friday Anthology. We hope to publish that in the spring. Stay tuned for details.

Meanwhile, head on over to Teacher Dancehere for more Poetry Friday fun.

About Me

Sylvia Vardell is a professor and author of the ALA bestseller POETRY ALOUD HERE, also POETRY PEOPLE, CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN ACTION, and the co-editor of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY series (for K-5 and for 6-8), as well as the first digital anthologies of poetry for young people, the POETRY TAG TIME series-- all in collaboration with poet Janet Wong. Vardell is also the poetry columnist for ALA’s BOOK LINKS magazine. A frequent speaker at conferences, Vardell chaired the NCTE Poetry Award committee and has served as a consultant to the Poetry Foundation.